


Ardent

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Clones, Humanstuck, Jaeger Pilots, M/M, Mecha, Mind Meld, Series of ficlets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-26 09:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the massive brawl in the cafeteria is contained they tell him in cold, disappointed tones that the guy whose nose he broke for being an intolerable shitwaffle (which started the whole thing) was the same guy who they summoned him here for, for the way their scores match so strangely well on paper.</p><p>--<br/>Collection of ficlets and oneshots in the Pacific Rim 'verse, or almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [callunavulgari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/gifts).



> Pacific Rim is a Giant Monsters versus Giant Robots movie, where pilots _feel_ their robot to pilot it and the stress to the brain is so intense they have to pilot in pairs, but the telepathic contact, and the necessary trust, lack of shame, and tolerance/understanding necessary to synchronize is very hard to balance for the pilots. Usually it works better with people who you're already great friends, lovers, or family with.
> 
> This was written for a Three Sentences AU Meme. So of course I wrote two times three chunks of three sentences, plus a last one for the road. ORZ

Karkat and Kankri are the least compatible pair of clonesibs that has ever been presented to a Shatterdome, and besides Kankri doesn't want to fight, he wants to go into PR (he wants to "open dialogue with that fascinating -- if misguided, of course!" BuenaKai rot-stinking _Kaiju cult_.)

Karkat stays with the pilot program anyway because he's had the training, damn it, and maybe a miracle will happen and maybe they've sent him to this Shatterdome at the ass-end of nowhere for reasons other than "we wanted you as far as possible from the last place where you burned all your bridges."

After the massive brawl in the cafeteria is contained they tell him in cold, disappointed tones that the guy whose nose he broke for being an intolerable shitwaffle (which started the whole thing) was the same guy who they summoned him here for, for the way their scores match so strangely well on paper.

\--

Dave doesn't want the asshole in his head (he doesn't want anyone in his head but bro) but life has never cared what he wants and besides there's something he _needs_ , there's Tempest Grim out here at sea about to become kaiju chow (there are more who he can't think about who are already kaiju chow.)

He will drag him kicking and screaming from his sulky little grump-hole in the unmatched, Jaeger-less pilot dorms, shove him into a drivesuit head first, leash him to the conn-pod -- bondage for the win and who cares if Dave gets kicked out of the program afterwards for the breach of every sacred trust (he has to tell himself he'll be able to go that far, because Rose, because John.)

When he crosses through the Jaeger docks Vantas is waiting for him by Knight Ardent, helmet under his arm, fully suited up, and he bares his teeth and snarls, "What the blood-shitting _fuck_ are you wasting our time traipsing around for when we have kaiju to curbstomp?" and for a brief, incandescent moment Dave loves him so much he could scream.

\--

(swirl around trust the mech it can take it _yes_ were behind it STAB cauterize EAT WHITE HOT METAL YOU MISBEGOTTEN FREAK OF UNNATURAL FUCKERY haha yes yeeesss pull it out straight dont want unnatural _toxic_ fuckery everywhere yesss now whirl away HOW CAN SO MANY TONS OF METAL DODGE SO SMOOTHLY THIS IS GORGEOUS a lot of hula hoop in my formative years YOU KNOW I CAN SEE YOUR MEMORIES RIGHT YOU AREN'T EVEN BULLSHITTING OH MY GOD.)

(shit shit shit its coming STAND OUR GROUND that thing is like an avalanche we are like a _smaller_ avalanche STAND OUR MOTHERFUCKING GROUND AND PUNCH IT _NOW_ oh fuck this is pancake season we must have done three whole flips is this my stomach or yours MINE I THINK BUT WE REAMED ITS UGLY MUZZLE IN UNTIL IT CAME OUT THE OTHER SIDE I CALL IT A PRICE WELL PAID we totally did hahaha yes good jaeger best right hook KNIGHT IS BEST KNIGHT BAR NONE YES AGREED now time to get back up woohoo wanna barf DO NOT BECAUSE I WILL TOO is it dead/IS IT DEAD _it is_ _OH MY GOD IT IS_ WE RULE SO FUCKING MUCH HAHAHA hahaha yeeeeeeeeeeeeesssss.)

**_(this is gorgeousperfect everything i have ever dreamed it would be (i am terrified))_ **

\--

Their sync ratio starts crashing after they've pulled Tempest Grim up for the helicos to clamp on and fly back to shore. Karkat wants to ignore it and keep walking, and Dave doesn't because he knows it'll remind him of _bro trying to keep walking that strut impaling him burning right through Dave's chest it hurts it hurts it burns father they're burning him, father no please he's not even your real dad anyway he's just another clone just a little older just try to get along with Kankri aren't they basically the same anyways._

Knight Ardent faceplants in the sea and Vantas disengages with a scream of pure rage, and Dave unhooks himself and goes to sit in a corner, music on and back turned to where (Karkat) Vantas (Line: Cancer, they went out of business as unethical not two years after Karkat was decanted anyways, no matter how starved for jaeger pilots the world is, clones never worked any better in practice but this is what he was made for this is who he could be) is pacing and kicking at things like that can get Dave out of his head, or him outside of Dave.

\--

Fact: he knew he would have to show a stranger all his mundane horrors and private wonderments some day.

Fact: Dave Strider irritates the piss out of him and the computers must have been virused up to the moon the day they paired them up.

Fact: it's been a week and he still dreams of a too-old half-brother he never had who was borderline abusive in how maladapted he was to child-rearing and never could show love outside of a fucking cockpit, and he still he sees himself standing in his battle armor ready to charge and save his (not his) friends and he wants to cry with how much he wants someone to feel so violently about him again.

\--

The pons helmet hits Dave in the chest and he grabs it out of pure reflex before it can fall to the ground. Karkat is standing there, eyes narrow with leashed fire and chin down like he's about to headbutt Dave in the face (which he _would,_ Dave can still read his body with distressing fluency.)

Another helmet hangs from his hand, and he doesn't wait for Dave before yanking it on, like a gauntlet for Dave to pick up if he's not too scared (like a hand for Dave to take, and he knows it will be just as shaky and damp with fear as his own.)

\--

They rock and sway together, wordless, pressed against the wall of Knight Ardent's dock (one of them is pressed there it might be karkat it might be dave neither one knows.) Their hips are fitted together and their thighs strain and caress each other in turn and their arms are locked and won't let go and they've triggered each other into an orgasm twice and no matter how nice it feels it won't be happening a third time do you think we're still teenagers dude seriously now spirit willing flesh kinda bruised.

In a little while they will disengage and walk down to dinner their hands trailing across each other's back (touch my ass in public and I'll kick you) (I'll like it anyways) their shoulders braced against each other and they will be dave and karkat again but for now they breathe in unison helmet to helmet and they think about the first kiss they will share when the bridge goes down.


	2. Ardent - One Week In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not writing a multipart, but complete scenes here and there along the chronology of the 'verse if/when the inspiration hits me. Some might be prequels. Some might even be from POVs other than Dave or Karkat and even barely mention them at all. (pretty sure most of them will still be all about the davekat, though.)

What Dave understands about clones is, they don't work out to be Drift compatible any more often than normal siblings, in the end.

There's still a disproportionate number of them at the Shatterdome.

"It isn't like we're welcome much of anywhere else," Karkat says, looking at the horizon over his crossed arms. The ferry puffpuffs its way across to the city behind, loud and stinky and slow. In Knight Ardent they'd be there in seven steps, tops.

"Maybe if we ran," Karkat says, and rolls his eyes a little bit behind the shades he swept from Dave's pile and put on this morning.

Dave wonders if with all this deafening noise and the slow boil of his thoughts in there he even notices Dave hasn't said anything out loud ever since they boarded.

It's an idle thought. He's more interested in wondering how much of Karkat's past he still doesn't know about, how much he doesn't know about clones and prejudice that he never noticed because it never affected him. The oldest of them are not thirty; people only got the leverage to attempt their creation after the Jaeger program was put in place and the lack of pilots proved to be more of a bottleneck than the money and work to build the Jaeger itself.

"Whaddya mean, about being unwelcome?" he mumbles into his collar. Karkat gives a careless, uncaring, lying shrug.

"Failures, drain of resources, no community attachment or moral values, educated like robots, _by_ robots -- of course it's bull but when have provable facts ever affected what ignorant assholes know is true?"

Dave inclines his head. Yeah, point.

"Damn straight," Karkat says without ever looking at him, chin still on his crossed arms, arms still on the guardrail.

Dave sighs quietly against the harbor wind, and hip-checks his protruding butt. "C'mon, we're almost there. Let's go down."

He pauses a second to consider the wisdom and political correctness of his words, and another second to wonder who the fuck would infect him with political correctness, cause it sure as hell wasn't Bro and it sure as hell isn't Karkat.

"Long and smooth and professional. So basically just like your mom."

"You tremendous _asshole_ ," Karkat calls out as he clanks down the narrow staircase after him. "My mom is dead!"

Dave snorts and hides a little quirk of smile in his collar.

It's a thirty minute walk from the docks to the Buena Kai temple at a quick clip, but the streets are full of people and Karkat doesn't want to get there so Dave makes sure to amble and to check out displayed wares for anything of interest. He's a tourist in his own fiefdom and he doesn't even care if they're fleecing him because his hair isn't done and his eyes are bare and he's not wearing his Ranger jacket. Injecting money into the local economy is good, having baubles and alcohol to trade back at the 'dome is good. (Making Karkat bitch because he's having to carry half of it and forget to count his steps down the street is great.)

They get there after the service is over; Dave slows down to let the last believers mill away -- to let Karkat hiss and spit a last time, out of sight, and breathe in, and stalk ahead.

Inside it's close and the ceiling slants like a ribcage; there are blood red and kaiju blue accents everywhere.

That or they're splashes of actual blood. Dave makes sure not to get close to the blue splotches.

In the first pew, by the altar, a man sits sideways, legs out in the alley but tucked close to the bench so no one will trip on them. Dave knew what to expect -- thick pullover, bright red, turtleneck up to his chin, only he's wrong.

The man looking at them is Karkat with a whole morning spent pomading his hair down into gentle waves, Karkat with five more years of life and ten years less of battlefields. He smiles at them as they approach -- tight, polite, restrained. Excited underneath.

He's in a poet's shirt, floaty and drafty as hell and he's got to be frozen with the temperature around here and Dave knows that isn't why Karkat has gone tense from nape to toes.

"Karkat! Why, what a pleasure it is to see you after so long. I cannot help but be disappointed that you missed the service, though. It was fascinating."

Dave isn't sure who wants to punch Karkat's clonesib harder, him or Karkat, but Karkat has the most right to it so Dave gets to be the good pilot. He pushes his way closer, props his elbow and a heavy bag on Karkat's shoulder. "Yo. Boat was late, and then there was a ton of foot traffic. We're completely heartbroken to have missed it though." He holds out a hand, even though he's not sure what Karkat's clone touched. "I'm Dave."

"Kankri Vantas," the other man says formally, and takes his hand in a mildly limp hold. "I take it you are his--"

" _Boyfriend_ ," Karkat interjects, the tone daring Kankri or Dave to correct him.

Like he wants to admit out loud he pilots a deicide inside a kaiju-sucker hive, even if most of them are gone out of earshot. Any of the faithful recognizes either of them from the news, they're dead. Or at least stoned in the unfun way.

"Ah. My... congratulations, then."

He sounds like he thinks they're lying. Dave leans a little harder on Karkat and hoods his eyes, crooks a "come and get some" smile, filthy as he can make it. "Yup. Tapping dat ass like it's a war drum and I'm giving the tempo to assault his breach."

Karkat rolls his eyes behind Dave's shades. Kankri stares at him for a long moment before he starts to blush. "That was a _very crude_ way to put it!"

"He's a douche," Karkat says, "he's in good company. Why are you here?"

They stare at each other. Dave takes the time to look Kankri over. Thinner, shoulders more narrow, footing vague and he hasn't moved away from the bench even though it's trapping him and he can't step back, which is something Karkat would never allow. It's not even a question of appearance, he doesn't even _breathe_ like Karkat, the thoughts that move behind his eyes are nothing like Karkat's, Dave wouldn't mistake them on a moonless night and six vodka shots.

There's a tattoo on his breastbone, peeking out of the shirt's neckline. Basic black China ink, no fancy curlicues. It's a broken circle with two smaller circles in it followed by a barcode.

Kankri catches him looking, of course he does, Dave has lost the habit of being discreet since his shades started doing the stealth for him. Kankri smiles, thin and hard and hostile, and says, "And how are you enjoying the sight of my brand?"

"Karkat's is sexier," he replies on automatic, but the fact is he has never seen Karkat's. All clones have a barcode and a logo -- Aradia's is on her temple, a curly-branched V over the end of her eyebrow like a ring and the barcode stretching out under her bangs.

He never really gave a thought about where Karkat's would be, he just knew from the Drift that Karkat doesn't like showing skin and besides in the last ten days they've made out fully clothed a ton and fallen asleep on all manners of beds and couches and training floors without getting anywhere.

They're lovers because the brain is the biggest sex organ and whoa have they fucked each other balls deep in there.

"I beg you pardon," Kankri says, barcode moving up with the deep, tirade-ahoy breath he's taking; "are you _fetishizing_ the very mark of our oppression and depersonalization?"

There's a "yep" on Dave's tongue but Karkat explodes first. " _Fuck you_ , Kankri, shut up, you're baring yours for a fucking _cult_ , what the hell is wrong with you?!"

"I," Kankri sneers back, making a visible effort to restrain a rage that looks to match Karkat's, "am _empowering myself_ by deciding to display a mark of _slavery_ in _support_ of--"

"In support of end-of-the-world murderous nutcases!"

"That is totally mischaracterizing--"

"--In _support_ of --""

" _In sympathy, if you'd rather!_ "

Karkat dumps the bags. Something cracks in there; no matter. Dave's own armful is on the floor and his arms around Karkat's chest in a second; he leans back, lifts him off his feet.

" _Down_ , Ranger," he tries to snap, but he doesn't have Marshal Crocker's innate commanding presence and Karkat isn't listening, isn't --

There's a man watching from a side door, half in shadows, and his alarm and tension cuts through Karkat's fury the way his words didn't. They turn to stare together, squint.

He's in the red robes of a practicing cultist, and his hat is... particularly ridiculous, but...

"... This is Grand Priest Kurloz Makara," Kankri says stiffly, "who did me the honor of inviting me here and hosting me, so that we may pursue important discourse on the matter of integration and better understanding. Father Makara, my clonesib Karkat and his, ah, significant other."

Karkat's eyes have gone narrow, but he's wearing Dave's shades. Dave's eyes are just blank, uninterested, denial, nope I don't care I don't want to know you back the fuck off.

"Yeah, hi. Like what you've done with the place."

The man quirks them a smile so faint it might as well have not been there, and then he has drifted past them along the altar and he's gone.

"Rude!" Karkat spits, when he would have spit for real if the man had tried to tell them anything.

"He does not speak outside of sermons," Kankri informs them pointedly, "so as not to dilute the strength of his message. An... interesting idea, you will admit, somewhat eccentric but we cannot fault the man for his strength of conviction."

"We can fault him plenty," Karkat mutters. Dave puts him back down; fucker's heavy.

Makara hasn't said a thing about Dave's slip -- good job being incognito -- so either he didn't hear (haha yeah right, Dave bets he's been listening in from the start) or he's playing a longer game.

Probably one where he wants Kankri so pissed off he runs straight back to his strung-out arms. Their tempers at least are a match and Dave knows spite motivates Karkat like nothing else.

"No, seriously, Kankri. We're in-laws now so I'm telling you this from a place of caring in my heart--"

"Dave shut up--"

Dave covers Karkat's mouth with his hand and hopes he'll trust him that long. He's not the one who hates and loves Kankri for being his big brother and not being his _dad_ , he's the one who admired and resented his big brother who acted as a dad and then the man died and game over. "Karkat was, like, totally astonished when he got your mail that you were in town. He didn't know if he wanted to be happy or what. But you made it sound like you wanted to be nearby because of _him_ , so--"

Kankri purses his mouth and turns away, adjusting his sleeves. He's not used to the way they float and it shows from the way he tugs them down, trying to get them to cover more skin. "Yes, well. It was indeed a relevant factor toward my choice of city, but I have a task I must accomplish as well and I was not intending to abandon my, my _mission_ half-done and presume on Karkat's -- _employers'_ hospitality for my sustenance thereafter."

"Your mission," Dave repeats.

"I've told you. I wish to open productive dialogue with BuenaKai. Surely such a controversial faith would provoke less tensions with a little more understanding and better public relations--"

Dave breathes out. Jesusfuck. He's half-turned already. Even if he never makes for a true believer he'll be doing their publicity for them in three months.

"I get it," Karkat rasps. "I get it. What I don't get is why you showed them _that_. You're the most prudish asshole I've ever met since I was decanted, and considering the type of controlling fuckwad liable to work as an educator for a baby factory that's saying a fuckload of something."

"Maybe," Kankri replies, haughty and miffed, "Maybe I felt _empowered_ , showing people the proof of my creation and not being rejected for it--"

Karkat flings a hand in the air. "Because it plays into their _humanity is evil let's burn it down_ agenda!"

"Are you -- you of all people! -- trying to shame me for what I choose to expose of myself?!"

He hisses it, but his hand is clenched on his collar, hiding his breastbone. Karkat's hand rises like he wants to do the same, cover the same place right through his own jumper.

"I thought you didn't _care_ how we'd been born, that there was no inherent value to being shot out of an actual vagina!"

"Well obviously society doesn't feel the same, now does it? But feel free to continue embracing your oppression!" He nods toward Dave, a quick twitch like a bird of prey's beak snapping at prey. "How is your ready-made destiny treating you?"

Silence.

"You did not," Karkat breathes eventually. "You... did not."

Kankri's eyelids twitch and he firms his chin and on Karkat it would mean he's feeling like an ass but would rather die than admit it.

Dave steps between them and slaps them both upside the head. (Kankri a bit harder.)

"Foul, yellow cards for both, return to your corners. This match will be clean, gentlemen, or it will be canceled."

"But he just--"

"What the fuck do you care about the opinion of a dude who never beat a kaiju to death while brainfucking the hell out of you? I mean, when your oppression gives such out of this world blowjobs then damn straight it deserves a hug or two. It's not even deepthroating at that level, it's like... sword swallowing. Hey wanna clean my Excalibur."

Karkat stares at him for a second, and massages the bridge of his nose. "The worst thing about this whole tirade is that I understood your meaning exactly."

"You mean to say there was a _meaning_ in there amidst the crude imagery and sexualized admissions of surrender to oppression?"

Dave twitches, but Karkat doesn't, for once. "... Yeah. There was."

He breathes in, loosens his shoulders, straightens his back.

"I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing, and I love every second of it. I get to save people. I get to be useful -- not like a replaceable cog. Dave would be benched without me. Me, not any Cancer clone out there! Tempest Grim would be dead, Shanktopus would have made landfall. Meanwhile you--"

Dave taps his arm before he can torpedo the remnants of the bridge.

"Meanwhile _I_ ," Kankri replies, offended like a Persian cat being laughed at, "Am being useful on a more than basic, immediate level, I am thinking of our society as a whole and the necessity of weaving a strong, accepting tapestry of all sorts of differences, I am helping orchestrate tomorrow's humanity!"

"Good luck with there being a tomorrow if we decide to go on strike this evening," Dave snarks back. He can't help it, Karkat's irritation is nagging at him.

"While your point and your tone are needlessly sarcastic I will point out that I never, not even once, mentioned that I thought your service was _unnecessary_. Though naturally the outrageous risks involved both in pilot survival and in the cost of failure show this is simply the less bad solution out of a great many worse ones, and as we don't know where a true solution might be found it is therefore extremely short-sighted to exclude from the dialogue a part of--"

"Do you tell your new friends you think that, while they sing glory be to the gigantic toasters stomping them into mush?"

Kankri glares. "I am not here to shame their religious beliefs and oppress their faith. It's visible you are not open to dialogue right now, Karkat, and if you are not prepared to meet me midway and attempt productive discourse--"

"We're prepared," Dave replies. "We came here, onto your turf. Heard your thesis. Gonna mull on it for a while. Next time you get to visit us, fair enough, right?"

Kankri and Karkat pause, look at him. He takes the time to pick up the bags strewn on the floor, to straighten up.

"How about the hospital? Radiation center."

Dave's words are coming cool and distant with the hurt Karkat is trying to swallow. He can't smother it entirely. He doesn't try all that hard.

 _Religious beliefs._ It's a matter of days until they mount a terrorist assault on a Shatterdome, and Dave doesn't count all the children and dependents already dragged out in the street to accept their due punishment and cleansing at the hands and paws and maws of their almighty masters.

Kankri blinks, shifts his eyes to Karkat and back to Dave. "While you may be under the false and preconceived impression that the ideas preached between these walls are 'poison', I object even for the sake of metaphor to placing my own well-being--and the well-being of my oppone-my fellow debaters, of course, to the physical danger of potential exposure to--"

"Nah, it's cool. We can shoot the shit with all the little kids and brave parents there, you know, tell them about how sad it is that they won't make an effort to extend understanding toward the people who say to their faces how they must have done something evil or have something inherently fucked up inside them, that makes them deserve it. How 'bout it? Fair? I mean yeah, a hospital, we're not irradiated yet, but you're not a cultist either and yet we're in here. Okay, sold."

... There goes the bridge. Welp.

"Yeah," Karkat says, all calm now that Dave isn't, "You owe it to the other side to at least look them in the eye if you're going to be saying BuenaKai has merit too."

Kankri has gone red with breathless, incredulous wrath. Dave nods at him, polite, and he walks out, bags in both hands and his partner matching his steps after all, not staying behind to -- hell, there was nothing more to be said.

When he crosses the door he glances backward and Karkat and Kankri's hands are clenched over their chests the exact same way.

Once they're away from the church and Karkat has gone off  point Dave hands him half of the bags and they keep trudging down toward the sea in silence.

They kind of unloaded in his face with both plasma cannons there.

He's just like Karkat, it doesn't matter how wrong-headed something is, his first reflex will be to dig in his heels and yell to cover the sound of their voices and pretend they didn't hurt him.

"He hurt you," Dave says. Dave cares about a great many things, behind the cool. People who treat his partner like an emotional punching ball aren't on the list.

It's barely less brutal than how it used to be between Bro and him on the worst days.

"We had good days too," Karkat says.

His hand is still massaging the keel of his ribs like the tattoo has gone tight.

"Hey," Dave says, "hey--"

"He was the one who taught me to cover it up," Karkat says, abrupt. "And he wasn't wrong, other kids were _shitty_ to clones, even those who'd never seen Dad pick me up and noticed that he was me adult with a beard, the parents were weird to him, like hey, what kind of creep are you, raising yourself, is your wife another you as well. When I was in training and Kankri had fucked off I didn't even tell any of the other clones I was like them, I was trying to pass like an asshole because of how much I _knew_ normal people wouldn't listen to me otherwise and --"

He stops himself. Dave waits, another three steps, but no other words come. He can't read him right now.

"Do you want to get it erased maybe?" he guesses.

"I would suck the eyeballs out of the head of the first asshole who came at me with a laser pen and vomit them up their asshole," Karkat muses, teeth gnashing so hard Dave is surprised there are no sparks. "He's -- that kaiju fucker, he's right, it's _me_."

"Well, you can be private without being ashamed," Dave says, although he knows that it'll have Karkat whirl around on him, bags swinging hard and tearing a little, bristle all over with indignation.

"Oh, it's _on_ , let's get me a V-neck right the fuck now!"

Dave lets himself smile.

"We're in town and I'm not taking that goddamn ferry for another fucking _year_ once we're home, come on, let's take care of it right now, where was that clothes shop?"

Dave follows, bags swinging, and thinks about pressing his lips to that tattoo in the dressing room until he knows it by heart.

He pretends he has no idea why Karkat's ears have gone ruddy.


	3. Press and Release

Dave has done interviews before, and Karkat hasn't, so they agree that Dave will lead. Karkat knows that Dave knows that Dave will lead until Karkat finds his legs, and then fuck that noise. At least it had better become true, or Karkat will have words with himself.

When he steps out onto the podium and the lights fall on his face, he almost dodges the Shatterdome's press agent's hand to escape right back where he came from.

The room isn't huge, but it's packed. Everyone is staring at them.

He shakes hands and follows Dave to the table, tries to pretend the wall of people staring intently at his every gesture is... somewhere not here. Or that he's somewhere else. In a cockpit, facing another kaiju, maybe. Yeah, that'd work better for him. But Dave is here, so...

He just. Crowds. Not the most awesome thing.

They sit. They have a table to hide behind. He stares ahead at no journalist in particular and schools his face so nothing shows when Dave's boot comes to hook his heel.

The press agent is introducing them. Karkat remembers to nod when she says his name, and to keep his head still when she says Dave's, even though (five weeks in) it's pavlovian already to turn around when someone calls for either one of them, indifferently. (Not that he's mixed up enough to think Dave is his name, but anything that concern Dave concerns him, doesn't it.)

"You are the pilots of Knight Ardent," she's saying. Karkat knows Dave will shift it into clownery before she's done with her sentence, so he's already moving to kick.

"We are? -- ow."

Karkat looks at her, and then he looks at the crowd, because they're not here to talk to her, she's not the one who's going to be asking the question. "That's us." His mind is blank. "...Thanks for coming."

The press agent -- what's her name, Karkat knows he's been told her name but -- turns to the crowd, says something smooth and practiced about... kill record, date of their first sortie, the official biography thing that anyone can find on their Shatterdome's homepage. (They have an _official biography_. Jesus.)

Foot bump. He bumps back, squares his shoulders, breathes. It's just words, they're just going to ask him to _talk_ , he can do that. He can do it for hours. It'll be fine. Even if he stutters or says stupid thoughtless shit it'll -- oh god, what if he says stupid thoughtless shit.

One of the journalists has the mike. Okay. Showtime. "It's said you were matched through computer algorithms and never met each other prior to your first launching?"

Dave's foot has Karkat's foot trapped against the nearest table leg. His voice is so mellow and easy Karkat could imagine they're holding court in the cafeteria. "Oh man, that's a straight up falsehood. We met right here--" he points at his nose -- the small bump on it, and Karkat groans. "See this? This is a traditional Vantas greeting also known as a broken nose."

He has to not say stupid shit, he has to -- oh god he can't think and Dave is so relaxed and informal and -- "Oh, stop complaining, at least you look a tiny bit manlier now." Welp, freefall. Nothing to do but keep talking, now. "Ain't never gonna be able to grow enough of a beard to look rugged, after all -- did I just say 'ain't'."

Did he just comment on his own use of 'ain't' in public. Oh motherfuck, someone kill him.

Dave is smirking, the fucking traitor. "Sure did." Karkat glares at him, face heating hard.

"Oooh no, I refuse to take on your speech patterns, you southern bastard."

"Soon I'll have you saying y'all and ain't nothing you can do, my pretty."

Karkat is frozen and his brain stalled, and the audience _laughs_. Here and there, friendly chuckles and unwilling snorts. Oh.

Dave is still looking at him instead of the audience, and his mouth twitches in a way none of them is close enough to notice. See? It's fine. "The second time we met was right by the cockpit, though, yeah."

"And it clicked?" the journalist asks. "Even after the -- the brawl?"

Karkat imitates Dave, turning back to face the audience. He can't loosen his spine and prop his elbows on the table the same way, though. The uniform is so starched around his clenched muscles it feels like wearing a Drivesuit.

"Turns out we were in perfect agreement that someone needed to bail out Tempest Grim asap and curbstomp Shanktopus into a waterlogged pancake, so yeah."

Dave's foot is jumping under the table, saying _come on come on say it, say it it's right on your tongue say iiiit_ , so Karkat forces it out. "... Can I mention that Shanktopus is the most ridiculous kaiju name I have ever heard."

He totally fails at sounding casual, but Dave shoots him a fake-snooty look and goes, "Most ridiculously _awesome_ , you mean."

No laughter this time, only a couple of polite smiles. Bluh. Why is he trying to clown around, this is so not him. He should just keep to facts and formality, it'll keep him from rambling on about offensive shit.

Another journalist gets the sacred Mike of Shut Up I'm Talking. "You have now three kaiju on your hunting tally--"

"And a half, we got to hold Siluriform down for Abyss Malkin during that double event, they couldn't pin it down. Slippery bastard."

Another. "I have the specs here and I was wondering -- you really take the flexibility available in the designs to the edge! Were there any additional modifications?"

Karkat can't keep the snort behind his teeth. The journalist immediately turns to him.

"Mister Vantas?"

"Well." Should he say it.

"I will _end_ you," Dave says, which is pretty much a gauntlet thrown and they both know it. Karkat smirks over the loud drum of his heart.

"We're reaping the benefits of --"

" _Don't_ say it, I know where you sleep."

Lord, but they're already smiling in anticipation, and Dave playing along, and Karkat has to fight back a laugh of his own. "All that hula hoop in Dave's childhood."

"I feel it's extremely important to mention it was a _joke._ "

Karkat stares at him, gives him a fake-pitying look. " _Buddy_... I've been in your head."

He knows Dave is handing him all those openings for potshots. It makes the audience laugh again either way. Great, if they fail as jaeger pilots at least they can still take their act on the road.

"I hate your guts, man." Dave sighs a little in mock disappointment, waves at the journalist. "But anyway yeah, now that they're figuring out exactly what we can do and the way our fighting styles are merging, we're getting new weapons and Knight's spine is getting a major overhaul, you geeks out here might see leaked schematics soonish. We do like the circular, whirlwind-of-death approach."

"It's a really cool approach!" someone yells out from the back of the room. Karkat scans the last rows but can't find them; he nods anyway.

"Thanks, we appreciate your appreciation."

"Appreciatively," Dave says, and Karkat kicks him again. This time, Dave allows himself to jump visibly; a few people chuckle.

Karkat thinks the mood in the room might be changing? Relaxing? Maybe he's the one who's relaxing a little. He made himself look stupid in front of a crowd and nothing bad happened. Could still flub it, but...

"Your opinions on the anti-kaiju wall?"

"About as efficient as a speed bump," Dave says. Karkat arches an eyebrow. Huh. "So, not perfectly useless, but way too money-and-labor-intensive to make the time gained worth it. I mean, for the same price you could have had another jaeger and a half standing by right there."

"Mister Vantas? You don't seem to agree." The journalist has a little smile on their face like they've just scented blood. Karkat shrugs.

"The question never came up before. I don't entirely disagree. It's true the wall can't stop a kaiju cold. At the same time a few minutes of delay can change a lot of things in the outcome of a kaiju attack, and it did inject some money back into the economy. Jaeger construction isn't really a good fit for much unskilled labor, so I'd have to say, the wall wasn't all bad, I just wish it hadn't been an either-or decision from the start."

Dave covers his mike, though he doesn't say a thing, just quirks him a smile. 'Sounded pretty smart there!' Karkat kicks him lightly, and then traps his foot in turn against the table leg.

It's the end of the nice questions, though.

"Mister Strider, you used to pilot Manikin Valiant with your brother..."

... Okay, relax, they knew it might come up. Karkat sneaks Dave a look, but he's impassive. No, wait, he's --

"Yeah, Knight Ardent is actually Manikin Valiant. At least, like, sixty percent of her. The rest is brand new, never used before, impalement free. We freshened up the paint, the bloodstains are hardly visible anymore -- ow."

Karkat leans forward to tilt Dave's mike away from him, rolls his eyes, plays into Dave's 'I don't want to take this seriously, don't make me'. "Don't listen to him, he's an asshole."

"If they're not supposed to listen to assholes then what are we even doing here, bud, this is going to be the shortest conference ever."

"...Point."

Okay, he wasn't even trying to be funny there. Um. Okay, whatever, cool.

The room settles down and another person takes the mike, and then plunges straight back into the same topic.

"Yes, I wanted to ask -- what's different, going from piloting with your elder brother, to piloting with a -- stranger?"

Wow, what was that pause, neither Karkat nor Dave liked it much. "Well, drifting with my brother never made me want to -- ow, okay, jesus. Do I have to --"

Does he have to answer the question seriously and without mentioning potential incest? It's that or not answering at all, really, because taking someone to task over a pause is a bit too hair-triggery. Karkat stares back.

Dave sighs. "Okay. We don't have this weird 'same memories from different points of view' thing, of course, unless we're talking recent stuff. But we have so many points of similarity that it really doesn't matter much, we just take a couple seconds longer to calibrate coming in and that's it."

He pauses to look over the room, and to brace, and then his voice goes a little more serious, a little less loose and drawly. Karkat presses the side of his foot to Dave's, fitting the edges of their boots together, Dave's heel slotting just right in his arch.

"And -- yeah. I have to admit drifting with my brother wasn't as -- I was his little bro, our parents died soon after I was born, his job was always to protect me no matter what, you know? With Karkat it's more -- we protect each other, and we agree with each other that when there's a risk to take we get to take it equally. We're both equally sacrificial idiots and we know it'd make the other dude emo if we stole their chance to--"

"--do the knighty thing," Karkat finishes for him, so he can breathe. And then he rolls his eyes because it's a stupid term, but it's Dave's term, so.

"Yeah, that. I mean, I miss Bro, but if he was -- alive today, and I'd tested sync with Karkat for some reason... Yeah, our sync ratio as Knight Ardent is actually stronger than the one I had with Bro and Manikin. So I guess -- he was eighteen years older than I was. He'd get to retire and be a mechanic like he always wanted to be, instead of just doing it in his spare time. ...Heh."

His smile is so tiny Karkat is almost sure only the first rank can see it, but it's too much already. That world -- where Bro had retired to the ground crew and Dave got to fly with Karkat and tinker with him -- Karkat never really allowed himself to think about that, never had a reason to, but. Yeah. It would have been nice. Karkat doesn't say a thing; they stare ahead as one, breathing together for a minute, and then Dave nods a little bit.

"Okay, next question."

"What about the fact that Mister Vantas is a clone? Does that have any impact? Do you think another--"

Is that son of a bitch fucking _going there_. Karkat knew it would happen, knew it from the start. It doesn't stop him wanting to--

"Yeah, no, let's not finish that question, foot ain't an awesome taste." Dave's leg coils around his, dragging his chair a couple inches closer, keeping him pinned.

He forces himself to loosen his shoulders. Dave's angry too, but he's better at hiding it and _they don't want to give them that_.

"I will tell you one thing, I have met one of Karkat's clonesibs, and if they put me in a jaeger with that dude the conn-pod would probably explode. Shrapnel all over the 'dome. It would be a jaegerocalypse. They're like -- whoa, how are you guys even _related_?"

Karkat can't help but snort. "Oh, come on. I'm not even talking visually."

Dave turns his head to look at him, a hand starting to wave lazily to illustrate his words. "No, but yeah, ok, you're both stubborn wordy assholes, but -- the dude is a _pacifist_." Back to the journalists. "He can't throw a punch to save his life, and probably wouldn't anyway because I'm not kidding, he takes his peace through talking dissenters into the ground seriously. Now look at my formerly flawless visage and tell me Karkat can't sucker-punch me and then hold his own in a brawl with the best of them. I mean, damn. He's a bulldozer. His bro is like... a tv host. One who sweet-talks _housewives_. I'm supposed to try to wrangle kaiju with that?"

Is Karkat blushing again? Karkat is blushing again. Fuck his life. Lucky he's tan as fuck, it doesn't show as much as it would show on Dave, but fuck his life anyway.

"I have no reason to think any other of their clonebrosis out there would make my brain dribble out any less, I mean, if they _were_ interchangeable then there wouldn't be all that pissing and moaning about how the cloning program didn't work, now would it? I dunno, that sounds logical to me but what do I know, I'm just a jaeger pilot."

People are nodding their agreement, laughing, and if Karkat had yelled he would have convinced maybe a fourth of them and made another half feel guilty and want to dig in their heels, but since it's funny they can agree to it and there's nothing really to brace against. Karkat sort of wishes he could talk to people like that, so _lightly_ , but he always comes at any dialogue with the weight and finesse of a wrecking ball.

"Long story short, there might be people with that body, and I congratulate them on a smart purchase because _damn_ , but Karkat is unique, and he's _my_ partner, you can't have him, I will fight you."

Okay. Yes. Karkat is totally punching his shoulder in public. He doesn't try to make it a nice one, either. Jesusfuck on a snowboard, his face is _scarlet_.

He's laughing, too. He can't fucking stop. God, he's going to die of an aneurysm at this rate, right here in public. Death by outrageous flattery, a fitting end for a Jaeger pilot.

He manages to calm himself down, and the woman currently holding the Mike of Questions waits for him patiently, smiling at him a bit.

"Mr Vantas, as we were saying, you are a clone--"

"No kidding?" he retorts, and doesn't let himself think; he pulls the collar of his uniform down and gives his chest an affronted look. Dave wolf-whistles, a few scattered laughs come from the crowd. "Wow. That _is_ some incisive journalistic practice."

"Thank you, I thought so too." She smiles, but then she sobers up. "My apologies for asking. Your line was discontinued for unethical practice, any comments?"

... Wow, his mood just plummeted. _Goddamn, lady,_ he thinks in Dave's voice ( _Dave_ thinks? who knows), _I almost liked you._ "I was two years old at the time."

"But you must have--"

" _He was two years old at the time, dude_. Do I need to clonesplain you a thing here or what. All he's gonna know is stuff that other people told him."

Yeah, the mood of the room is turning. Some people are disappointed, some vaguely uneasy. Most of them are professional enough that their eyes sharpen, though, and their smiles, and the fight for the mike.

They're going to keep biting at it until he's bled out or until the press conference is ended.

Like hell he's going to let Dave shoulder that for him. This is Karkat's battlefield. He'll take help; he won't take protection. Karkat gets up on his feet.

"I'll say one thing. I'm not sorry I was born."

Silence. For now. He doesn't want to leave anyone enough space to ask a single fucking thing.

"I have no comment on the mistreatment older Cancers might have suffered at the hands of Cancercorps -- I don't remember suffering any, personally, though I'm aware that others did. No, shut up, I'm talking."

He glares the man down. The room quiets down. Good.

"The single thing I really fucking wish I could change about being a clone is the riot of 2018 where a mob of anti-clone protesters lynched my father and burned him to death, I really fucking regret that. He was trying to calm them the fuck down and they killed him in one of the most hideous ways I can even fathom. To any of you who are still alive -- because of course none of them were ever arrested -- I will say this: I'm really, really happy I get to save your bigoted, hateful lives every single day of my life until I get to become a gourmet kaiju snack in a pricey tin can, and I hope that owing your continued safety and livelihood to me sticks sideways up your asses for a great many years to come."

His shoulders are squared and his chin is up, it's like he's in the street again, daring another bunch of kids to come after him.

He's not that kid anymore, and he...

He misses his father, and understands him so much more than he ever thought he would.

"And I hope the ones of you who can feel guilt and remorse feel it, and if you truly do -- I forgive you."

... The room is a tomb, nothing is moving. Did he really --

Did he really say that. Did he really say it, so quiet and serious, so ridiculously intense, oh god. Dad. _Dad_. He's going to hear himself on the news and it'll be the same tone, the same quiet and gentle -- the same voice, he sounds different in his own head of course but he knows, knows that on TV he won't, he'll sound exactly like.

He squares his shoulders again, tosses his head back to blow a lock of hair off his nose. "So long as it _never ever fucking happens again on your watch_ , you hear me?"

Gruff and awkward now -- he's lost the tone, the hold, the balance, and he's so glad when Dave gets up as well, so glad. The press agent gets up a beat after them and says "And I think that'll be all for today!" and he is so, so glad she has their backs too, so glad she's not making him stay.

He says, again, "Thank you for coming" like a robot (John made him repeat and repeat it, "the only thing you should say, it'll salvage everything!") and stalks out with Dave.

They're three steps out of the door when Dave's hand grabs his and they match steps so their arms will swing in sync without a word, they don't talk until they're out the backdoor and on Vriska's bike and driving away.

He should go see Kankri -- not to _talk_ , but he probably deserves a heads up. But no matter how short he manages to keep it, it's going to be so fucking exhausting trudging through that mess after he just got done here.

"Kankri first, and then dinner and a movie?" Dave throws over his shoulder, against the wind and the roaring exhaust pipe. The bike swerves and slips between a truck and a rickshaw.

Karkat leans against Dave's back, turns his head so the helmet presses sideways against his shoulder blade, closes his eyes.

"Yeah, okay."


End file.
